


Stay your hand and take mine

by giragiygas



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (cry mad about it), (honestly that even includes lotor being 10k years old for no reason), (my story my rules bby), AU, Multi, canon dies quietly and forgotten, it will not be mourned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 03:04:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18908233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giragiygas/pseuds/giragiygas
Summary: Once more, Zarkon and the witch conspired to take everything from him. Lotor refused.





	Stay your hand and take mine

Chaos erupted across the hangar as the Empire's forces turned on them. Most of the engineers fled as the alarms blared even before the cannons started firing, though surprisingly a small handful remained, terrified but loyal anyway. Lotor didn't pay the ones escaping too much mind.

It was a shame to leave the final comet ship in Zarkon's hands, but he'd come back and retrieve her eventually. None of the engineers knew her entire structure and quite a few had even been been told to add custom and therefore unfamiliar parts incorrectly, to be unknowingly fixed later on by others, so she was in no danger of being completed under Zarkon's control. 

The ones who stayed quickly joined Lotor and the generals, falling in step behind Acxa and flanked by Zethrid. Some were even carrying what blueprints and ore fragments they'd been able to snatch. He'd have to remember their faces and names later, to properly applaud their brave defiance of Zarkon once they'd all made it to safety. Wherever that was.

This included Narti, hand tightly gripped by Ezor as she guided her back to the ship. This also included Kova, his head trapped inside Zethrid's glove and making his opinion of that very clear as he scratched her arm.

Once more, Lotor's decision led to disaster. He'd brought Narti and Kova to Empire HQ, he'd _forgotten_  what the witch was capable of and what she wouldn't hesitate to do. Now they were all enemies of the Empire, and Narti's mind had been invaded by a monster. Or, perhaps Kova's. Maybe both. It was impossible to tell. Regardless, this was his fault. 

He refused to let them pay for his mistakes.

"We need to split them up - Ezor, take Narti and go with Acxa in the crested ship. Zethrid, you keep Kova and come with me in the sprinter. The rest of you, go to whichever general you have the most experience working with. Follow our commands and we will protect you." 

The doors to both the crested and sprinter ships opened as they approached, before anyone had even began the unlocking procedure. Lotor didn't have time to question it, but he filed it away for later. They shut behind once everyone was inside too, the hold and the cabins all activating as Zethrid and Lotor hurried the engineers and Kova to secure positions before making their way to the bridge.

Even the cockpit within the sprinter ship lit up, the engines quietly humming themselves back to life beneath his feet, as he took his seat. The communication line for the crested ship opened too, before Acxa had the chance to sit down, though she didn't let it distract her as she got into position. "Narti's unconscious in a containment tube down in the decontamination cell - Ezor's keeping an eye on her."

"What happened?" 

"I can't tell if she fainted or if Haggar did something - either way, now I don't have a co-pilot and we don't have time for Zethrid to switch ships. Where's Kova?"

Zethrid frowned at her many scratches as she leaned over Lotor's shoulder, instead of going to her seat and using her own line. "He's in the hold, in a box with an empty fuel unit on the lid so he's not going anywhere. Before Ezor asks, yes I put air holes in it." 

"I'll let her know. Lotor, I've got four engineers on my ship."

"Seven here." Eleven total, out of two hundred engineers... Actually, that was far more more than he'd ever expected to have the nerve to stand against Zarkon. That being said, the possibility that some were Empire or Blade infiltrators, or even just compromised as Narti or Kova had been, existed because of course it did. Surely none of them would be foolish enough to attempt any subterfuge as the Empire rained hell down on them though. He'd soon identify them, now that the cover of the anonymous crowd of engineers was no more. He'd decide what to do with them later. "Do any of yours have pilot experience?"

"No."

Unfortunate. That meant Acxa's mobility was halved and splitting up to reconvene at a safe location was out of the question. With a single pilot, the crested ship was still more than a match for a few Empire warships and could put the fear of the gods in Voltron, but there was an entire fleet out there that would wear Acxa herself down long before the ship was in any trouble. 

He'd have to carve a path with Zethrid. Given the grin on her face as she took her seat, she'd been hoping that was the plan no matter what. 

Predictably, the hangar doors were tightly shut to prevent their escape. Even more predictably, nobody had figured out exactly how strong the cannons in the sprinter ship were or thought to reinforce the doors just in case, because a single blast was all she needed to clear a path through both the doors and the ambush fighter ships waiting just outside. 

For a brief moment, through the explosions, debris and laser blasts which helped camouflage their escape, Voltron's energy signature flashed across the radar. Right at the edge of the battle, easily out of range of the Empire ships that were currently opening fire on anything that moved, including even their own ships if they were in the way. Then it vanished, the pilots apparently choosing not to interrupt the Empire eating itself in the name of killing Lotor. 

A wise decision. 


End file.
